Global Voices » St. Vincent & the Grenadines

St. Vincent & the Grenadines: Stunned by Suicides

Janine Mendes-Franco — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:55:59 +0000

And Still I Rise is saddened by “news of three suicides by hanging have stunned the nation.”

St. Vincent & the Grenadines: Political Letters

Matthew Hunte — Fri, 04 May 2012 11:20:22 +0000

Vinci Kallaloo wants to know if former New Democratic Party Senator Anesia Baptiste had written a letter to Opposition Leader Arnhim Eustace in search of an appointment to Parliament much in the same way she wrote one contesting her recent dismissal.

This Week in the Caribbean Blogosphere

Janine Mendes-Franco — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 18:40:43 +0000

It has been another interesting week in the Caribbean blogosphere, with netizens discussing everything from crime to elections…

Trinidad & Tobago

There was outrage in the blogosphere over the death of two-year-old Aliyah Johnson, a victim of child abuse. Guanaguanare was worried “that [it] will amount to nothing”:

The sort of callousness that did not recognise or respect her humanity/divinity is not something that was just one lifetime in the making. This sin is generational and it will also be generations before it is lifted…and only if we begin right away to work towards that future.

Government offices and officials can only do so much. We are the ones, however, who have actually heard the cries and have seen the bruises and other signs of abuse. We continue to be the silent witnesses in our neighbourhoods and maybe even in our own homes. We have to stop pretending that it will all go away…

In a follow-up post, the blogger linked to a video that could help “[address] the problem of child abuse and the wider problem of violence (and the connection between the two) in our country.”

The Eternal Pantomime added:

Remember Daniel Guerra? Remember he was picked up in a car a stone’s throw from his house, by a parlour, and days later his body was found in the Tarouba waterway system?

Remember the Prime Minister wrote a Letter to Daniel, that was really a letter promising to save all the children of Trinidad and Tobago promising that what happened to Daniel, Akiel, Sean Luke, Amy, Hope…would never happen again…

Well…crimes against children are on the rise, and the government has been quietly dismantling social work and welfare projects that can assist in these situations…So think about little Aaliyah now, who, according the forensic report was beaten to death… This is going to happen again and again partly because this society is very sick and partly because very few systems are properly enabled to deal with these issues…when last you hear about the trial against the two boys that killed Sean Luke? I done talk…

Bloggers in Trinidad and Tobago also focused on other issues this past week, including the Dangerous Dogs Act “as news of yet another innocent child being violently ripped and torn apart by yet another, dangerously-aggressive, unrestrained dog makes the rounds” and patients' rights, as cancer patients who were over-exposed to radiation at a national facility continue to seek justice.

The Bahamas

More north along the Caribbean archipelago, Bahamian netizens had elections on their mind. Blogworld, who recently posted her own voter's manifesto said:

So, in the parlance of the day: Papa has rung the bell.

I can talk the talk like any other Bahamian in 2012. Papa = the current prime minister, Hubert Ingraham. ‘The Bell' = the announcement of a date for the next general election. I know how to translate the statement.

I just don’t know what it means.

She went on to explain:

Some time ago, I wrote up my own manifesto (since the political parties vying for leadership of the country hadn’t seen fit to share any of their promises or policies for the next five years) as a voter, a participant in a process that is commonly called “democratic”. Since that time, others have joined me in making similar statements, and a few voices have called for our leaders and other politicians to have the balls to step out from behind their carefully crafted propaganda and open themselves up to discussions of issues with reasonable citizens.

But, disappointingly, and with one important exception (Branville McCartney of the DNA) they haven’t.

And this, to my mind, does not bode well for our future.

So my question is this. Given the passion and energy being expended in tearing down the other parties, or the other leaders—in dismissing reasonable questions and observations as ‘FNM' or ‘PLP' or even ‘DNA'—each of these being intended as insult, what happens the day after elections, when one party has won and the other(s) has/ve not? How do we work on building a nation of Bahamians?

So as we stare down the home stretch, as we slide into these last three weeks before Bahamians go to the polls and cast our votes, I would like at least one day to be dedicated to having the people who are contesting the elections to tell us what their vision is for this nation. Where do we go from here? How do we find our place in the twenty-first century?

Weblog Bahamas‘ Rick Lowe, meanwhile, hoped that “the level of discussion will be raised for the campaigns”:

If this is what we will get from the opposition it certainly seems to narrow the choice. It also makes me wonder why we must refer to some M.P.s as honourable.

Cuba

Cuban diaspora bloggers acknowledged the passing of Miami-based Catholic Bishop Agustin Roman. Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter said:

Cubans have lost the physical presence of one of the great leaders of the Cuban exile community who passed away yesterday night at the age of 83 but his spirit and his writings live on. Monsignor Agustín Román wrote and spoke about the challenges facing the Cuban people and…offered a profound analysis of the state of the Cuban dissident movement that remains extremely relevant.

Pedazos de la Isla said of a speech the late Bishop made “about the importance of the internal Cuban opposition, dissidence, or Resistance”:

As he explains in this heartfelt piece, no matter what you call those brave Cubans inside the island, they all fight for justice. And justice is what Roman also represented in his 84 years of life. Although he is now physically gone, he will always spiritually guide not just Cuban exiles, but all Cubans, into freedom. His example was one worth emulating- a true man of God, a true Catholic, and a true Cuban. He was not afraid to tell the world that his brothers and sisters were in need of freedom, he was not afraid to say that he was an exile, and he was not afraid to explain why he was exiled (he was sent out of the country at gunpoint by the Cuban regime). Agustin Roman did not live off of hate or bitterness, and yet, he was clear in explaining that fighting peacefully was not a sign of weakness, but instead a sign of great strength and courage.

babalu shared details about the funeral arrangements:

This afternoon, Father Agustin Roman will be laid to rest. At noon today, a funeral procession will leave La Ermita de la Caridad and make several stops throughout Miami.

Diaspora bloggers also expressed concern about the safety of the man who was arrested before the start of a Papal Mass in Santiago de Cuba for shouting “Down with communism!” and published a translation of an interview with the man's mother.

On island, bloggers were talking about the trial of El Ñaño, an imprisoned Rastafarian priest. (This post gives some background on the case). Even before yesterday's trial, bloggers were tweeting about his innocence; they also live-tweeted the court proceedings, ending with the following update:

The trail has ended but the judgment may be delayed for months.

Other Territories

Jamaica: Abeng News Magazine kept its readers au courant with the latest developments in the Trayvon Martin case.

Puerto Rico: Gil the Jenius likened the country's increasing violence to a cancer.

St. Vincent & the Grenadines: And Still I Rise marked the thirty third anniversary of the La Soufriere eruption.

Barbados: Contemporary artist Sheena Rose commented on the stereotypical image many people have of the Caribbean:

The more I travel, the more I realize that people do not know the Caribbean. I get the feeling that they thinking we live at the beach all day, have the steel pan playing and drinking coconuts all day, living in a paradise. Yes to me, my home is my paradise but it have more than the beach and coconuts.

The thumbnail image used in this post, “VOTE”, is by PropagandaTimes, used under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Creative Commons license. Visit PropagandaTimes' flickr photostream.

St. Vincent & the Grenadines: R.I.P. “Rasum”

Janine Mendes-Franco — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 18:07:34 +0000

Abeni pays tribute to the late Gerard “Rasum” Shallow, “a colossus on the Vincentian cultural landscape.”

St. Vincent & the Grenadines: White Collar Criminals

Janine Mendes-Franco — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:17:54 +0000

“Recently, stories of theft at government agencies have been making the news”: Abeni says that “[people get sent] off to jail…for the petty crimes while the big league thieves strut about the place as happy as could be. Something has got to be wrong with that picture!”

Caribbean: We'll Always Love You, Whitney

Janine Mendes-Franco — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:22:08 +0000

Following the untimely death of singer Whitney Houston, a handful of Caribbean bloggers are talking about her talent, her music and her legacy.

From Trinidad and Tobago, The Liming House posts a video of the singer performing “I Look to You” and says:

Goodbye, Whitney. Because your voice, even when ravaged, could still reduce me to tears.

Barbados Free Press expresses similar sentiments.

Blogging from Jamaica, one of the things that most strikes Active Voice is that many of the international mainstream media “[seem] to have one clip of Whitney singing/performing”, to which one of her Twitter followers responded:

You know they don’t keep black folk in stock.

The post continues:

I couldn’t understand why for a couple of hours CNN kept showing the same footage of Whitney in a grey dress singing on stage, while NBC seemed to have slightly more diverse clips to accompany the sparse details of her death yesterday. @106harlem’s terse response is shocking but true. Within a few minutes @diverseworld chimed in saying @anniepaul @106harlem … If this is about the footage. I agree. Finally BBC moved from the Bodyguard…

Plain Talk begins his post with a line from “The Greatest Love of All”, but soon voices his concern that the cult of celebrity may be sending the wrong message to regional societies:

The truth of the matter is that the deepest needs of a human being cannot be medicated away; human beings, people, need love, acceptance, intimacy and a feeling of belonging as much as air, water and food to develop, regardless of how unfashionable and contradictory that statement may sound…

Our society is now at the cusp of a complete breakdown because we bought the lie wholesale and sprung for all of the attachments as well. The modern day man-made dilemma of depression that is caused either by the abandonment or outright abuse of our children when they are at their most vulnerable can only be turned around through deep self examination and acceptance in a healthy loving environment and by a life of purpose and of service to others.

We need teachers who love children, who chose the profession out of the desire to mould and develop healthy young minds in a world of immense possibilities and dreams. We need to put back the structures of a healthy society into place, that encourages family life rather than its destruction; that rebuilds our nation into a place where it is safe and beautiful to be a child, and where it is healthy and possible to grow up and become an adult. We need to love each other, take care of each other, and to treasure and grow our communities into spaces of human development and care once again, so as to have somewhere to retreat to when times get dark and we need the trust and support only loved ones can give.

Finally, over in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Abeni writes:

When the phone rang last it was to report two deaths. One was yet another female homicide and the other the death of mega star Whitney Houston. Both were devastating for various reasons. The blood of females continue to drench the soil and it makes me scared,helpless and angry at the same time.

Ms Whitney was an icon, She was gorgeous,regal and had the most amazing voice ever. It seemed like everything she touched turned to gold. From being the first black woman to grace the over of Seventeen magazine, to an endless succession of hits,to lighting up the screen she had the fans eating out of her hands. As a 90's teen her music was a constant in my life.

Many would prefer to reduce her life to her struggles with drug addiction as if it were the single defining factor. I can't and I won't because I believe we or most of us have our demons. We however, have the luxury of not having them played out on the public stage. In the end she was a human as human as all of us.

Rest in peace sweet girl and thanks for sharing your talent with us.

The thumbnail image used in this post, “Whitney Houston - Concert in Central Park / Good Morning America - Manhattan NYC”, is by asterix611, used under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) CC license. Visit asterix611's flickr photostream.

St. Vincent & the Grenadines: Women's Congress

Janine Mendes-Franco — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:37:11 +0000

“There is great buzz about St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ first ever Women’s Congress to take place in March”: CODE RED says that “ff the Women’s Congress can move towards the creating women as a political constituency they will have achieved tremendous success.”

Jamaica, St. Vincent: Happy Earth Day, Mr. Marley

Janine Mendes-Franco — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:52:05 +0000

Geoffrey Philp and Abeni both pay tribute to the late reggae icon Bob Marley on his birthday.

St. Vincent & the Grenadines: Caring Diaspora

Janine Mendes-Franco — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:46:43 +0000

“Sometimes I have scant respect for Vincentians in the diaspora. They appear to be extremely critical of everything Vincentian, know what's best for us but provide little beyond chatter”: Abeni has found a notable exception to the rule.

St. Vincent & the Grenadines: Favourite Proverbs

Janine Mendes-Franco — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:11:56 +0000

“I consider them to be expressive and beautiful in a way that is so Caribbean”: Abeni blogs about West Indian proverbs.

St. Vincent & the Grenadines: Don't Blame the Women

Janine Mendes-Franco — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:27:16 +0000

“Every now and again politicians make comments that are mind numbingly stupid”: Abeni calls out St. Vincent's deputy Prime Minister for her plea to “Vincentian females not to dress in a manner that tempts men.”

St. Vincent & the Grenadines: Time for a Slutwalk?

Janine Mendes-Franco — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:47:40 +0000

CODE RED calls the comments of the deputy Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines “particularly dangerous in the context of such high levels of violence against women and murders of women…for the millionth time, clothing does not invite nor excuse violence against women.”

St. Vincent & the Grenadines: Getting Tourism Right

Janine Mendes-Franco — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:02:03 +0000

“There is a St Vincent we love…and to our delight CNN, New York Times Travel and Travel and leisure have placed our island paradise on their top spots to visit in 2012″: But, says Abeni, “The ball is firmly in our court to create a favorable impression since we'd only have one chance to get it right.”

Caribbean: Thoughts on World AIDS Day

Janine Mendes-Franco — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 19:19:29 +0000

December 1, was World AIDS Day. This year's theme was “Getting to Zero”, which, in the words of one Caribbean blogger, meant striving “towards achieving 3 targets: Zero new HIV infections. Zero discrimination. Zero AIDS-related deaths. In other words wrap it up, get tested, dismantle the AIDS related stigmas. Get the facts and act on them.”

Her regional peers soon weighed in with their own thoughts about and support for the ongoing battle against HIV and AIDS.

Jamaica's Girl With a Purpose took advantage of the occasion to make a plea for sexual abstinence among youth:

In Jamaica 32,000 people have AIDS but over half of these people don't know it. That's one in every 9 people. (Jamaica has a population of over 2.7 million people).

Although advancement in technology allows those persons living with HIV and full-blown AIDs to live longer, there is still stigma attached to having the virus.

I am appealing to our youth:

Your well-being is important to God.

He knows that sex outside of marriage destroys the human spirit.

Being naive about sex and safe sexual practices could kill you.

Sex isn't running away…Concentrate on developing the total you: your spirit, your mind, your well-being and your body.

Her compatriot, The Wickedest Time, posted three perspectives about World AIDS Day, here, here and here; some highlights included:

AIDS is real and it is up to you to be responsible; use protection, get tested on a regular basis, and only indulge in those that are truly worthy of holding the rest of your life in the palm of their hands, don't be blind to a pretty face and nice smile.

People should begin to pay more attention to this epidemic on a daily basis — not just on this specific day. Highlighting an epidemic on one day followed by silence on the other 364 days is not good enough.

We must try to do a lot more in educating the worlds population about one of the most deadliest diseases out there because it is obvious that people are still being infected at an alarming rate. With little education about how to protect yourself or how to deal with the situation if you are infected, escalation of this problem is inevitable.

A day where we want to spread the awareness, not the disease. AIDS is the MOST destructive epidemic in recorded history. Not talking about it will not make it go away. The only thing that you can do is protect yourself.

Over in St. Lucia, meanwhile, Alien in the Caribbean wondered whether “true lovemaking and a fulfilling intimate sex life between couples is one of the answers to the AIDS epidemic”. The blogger went on to explain why she felt that when it came to sexual intimacy in the region, “the only thing on [people's] minds was vaginal penetration and nothing more”:

This lack of imagination saddened me, especially when there are hundreds of safe and loving things a couple, even a couple where one person might be HIV positive, can do to share intimacy and pleasure. And so, it led me to ask, ‘Could our lack of imagination when it comes to sex be one of the many reasons why AIDS is spreading so rapidly in this region?'

Maybe if we were focusing more on the quality of our sexual experiences instead of the quantity of times we “get a juk” (especially the men), it would be easier to implement safer sex into our sexual routines. The fact is safer sex goes hand in hand with good sex.

She further suggested that:

Good sex comes from a kind of intimacy that allows openness of communication, concern for each other’s pleasure and health, mutual exploration, sharing desires and fantasies and freedom to feel safe within a loving relationship. As a bonus, much of the infidelity that often results in the spread of AIDS would also decrease if both parties were deeply satisfied in their sex lives with each other.

In this day and age of the AIDS epidemic, one would expect our imagination to grow beyond just rudimentary coitus. We have stubbornly held on to their outdated hypocrisy and shame. We are not widely providing sex aids, sex counseling, couples counseling or open and honest education about sex and sexuality. Yet at the same time we continue to nourish the primal sexual drive in our music and culture.

It is no coincidence that the countries with the highest HIV contractions are those that still have deep seated conservative, repressed and hypocritically religious views on sex.

Trinidad and Tobago-based Globewriter posted a photo of Matthew Shepard along with a statement from the foundation that was started in his memory, dedicating his post:

To all those lost to disease and hatred and to the hope for a better tomorrow.

Havana Times ended on a hopeful note:

Zero new HIV infections, zero incidents of discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths are the goals set by UNAIDS initiative.

Though this aim is almost impossible, experts point out that Cuba has developed a comprehensive prevention program that incorporates research activities, assessment, training and counseling to the public at large, according to a PL report.

Remarkable progress has been made on the island in the treatment of HIV/AIDS, which has contributed to improvements in the quality of life of patients, increased their survival rates and has decreased complications.

The thumbnail image used in this post, AIDS Awareness Ribbon, is by Auntie P, used under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Creative Commons license. Visit Auntie P's flickr photostream.

St. Vincent & the Grenadines: Aiming for Zero HIV

Janine Mendes-Franco — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 13:22:35 +0000

On World Aids Day, Abeni says: “The Caribbean has the second highest regional HIV prevalence after sub-Saharan Africa, although the epidemic has slowed considerably since the mid-1990s. The theme for World AIDS Day 2011 is ‘Getting to Zero.' In other words wrap it up, get tested, dismantle the AIDS related stigmas. Get the facts and act on them.”